ADDRESS 


Lyman  /AD 

(Editor  “The  Outlook’*) 


at  a  Mass-Meeting  in 
Carnegie  Hall,  New  York, 
March  Fourth,  1907 


auspices 


FRIENDS  OF  RUSSIAN 
FREEDOM 


Issued  from  Headquarters 

500  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


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VSA 


FRIENDS  OF  RUSSIAN  FREEDOM 

500  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


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Edward  M.  Shepard,  President  (Attorney), 
New  York 

Rt.  Rev.  David  H.  Greer,  Vice-President 
(Bishop-Coadjutor  Prot.  Ep’l  Diocese),  N.  Y. 

Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson, 
Vice-President  (Author),  Boston 

George  Kennan,  Vice-President  (Author), 
New  York 

Seth  Low,  Vice-President  (Publicist),  New  York 

Herbert  Parsons,'  Vice-President 
(Member  of  Congress),  New  York 

William  Jay  Schieffelin,  Treasurer 
(Merchant),  New  York 

Theodore  Hardee,  Secretary ,  New  York 


ADDRESS 


or 


OF 


2 

*  t 


Dr.  Lyman  Abbott 


When  an  American  invites  his  fellow- 
citizens  to  give  their  moral  and  material 
aid  to  revolutionists  who  are  endeav¬ 
oring  to  overthrow  the  government  of  a 
country  with  which  his  own  country  is 
at  peace,  it  behooves  him  to  state  clearly 
and  concisely  the  reasons  for  such  ac¬ 
tion.  The  presumptions  are  always 
against  war ;  they  are  always  against 
revolution;  they  are  always  against  in¬ 
terference  in  the  affairs  of  one  nation  by 
the  people  of  another  nation.  This 
threefold  presumption  must  be  overcome 
in  order  to  justify  the  extension  of  moral 
and  material  aid  to  the  revolutionary 
party  in  Russia.  The  reasons  for  ex¬ 
tending  such  aid  must  indeed  be  very 
.  compelling.  I  may  be  permitted  to  state 
the  considerations  which,  in  my  own 
mind,  have  overcome  this  threefold  pre¬ 
sumption  against  the  cause  with  which 
we  are  asked  to  identify  ourselves. 

The  primary  object  of  government  is 
%  the  protection  of  persons  and  property. 
We  differ  among  ourselves  widely  as  to 
other  functions.  Some  of  us  are  social- 


A 


I 

o  i.  o  o  o 


ists  and  some  individualists.  We  differ 
widely  among  ourselves  as  to  the  best 
form  of  government,  and  some  of  us  *' 
believe,  as  I  do,  that  there  is  no  one 
best  form,  that  different  political  organ¬ 
izations  are  needed  for  different  com-  ^ 
munities  and  different  epochs,  and  that 
is  the  best  government  which  best  fulfills 
its  appointed  ends.  But  monarchists, 
aristocrats,  democrats,  individualists, 
socialists,  all  agree  in  this,  that  the  pri¬ 
mary  function  of  government  is  to  pro¬ 
tect  persons  and  property.  If  it  fails  to 
do  this,  whatever  its  form,  whatever 
other’  functions  it  may  pretend  to  fulfill, 
it  fails  in  that  which  is  primary  and  fun¬ 
damental  and  which  justifies  its  exist¬ 
ence.  We  may  differ  on  the  question 
whether  governments  derive  their  just 
powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed, 
but  no  American  questions  that  govern¬ 
ments  are  instituted  and  should  be  ad¬ 
ministered  for  the  benefit  of  the  gov¬ 
erned  and  primarily  for  the  protection  of 
their  persons  and  their  property,  and  few 
Americans  will  question  the  affirmation 
of  our  Declaration  of  Independence  “that 
whenever  any  form  of  government  be¬ 
comes  destructive  of  these  ends  it  is  the 
right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  to  abolish 
it,  and  to  institute  a  new  government 
.  .  .  and  provide  new  guards  for  their 
future  security.”  Because  the  Russian 
Government  signally  fails  to  protect  per- 


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sons  and  property;  because  it  has  be¬ 
come  destructive  of  those  ends  for  which 
*  governments  are  instituted  among  men; 
because  the  last  vestige  of  hope  that  it 
can  be  so  modified  as  to  become  an  in¬ 
strument  for  the  preservation  of  life,  lib¬ 
erty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  has 
disappeared,  we  believe  that  it  is  the 
right  and  duty  of  the  Russian  people  to 
overthrow  their  present  government  and 
to  provide  some  new  guards  for  their 
future  security. 

We  do  not  protest  against  autocracy 
because  it  is  autocracy,  nor  against 
bureaucracy  because  it  is  bureaucracy; 
nor  demand  that  the  Russian  people 
adopt  our  form  of  government  or  use 
our  methods  for  the  protection  of  funda¬ 
mental  rights ;  nor  insist  that  it  shall 
extend  its  functions  and  become  more 
socialistic  or  limit  its  functions  and  be¬ 
come  less  socialistic;  nor  even  demand 
that  it  shall  adopt  what  we  are  accus¬ 
tomed  to  regard  as  fundamental  guar¬ 
antees  of  liberty,  such  as  the  separation 
of  Church  and  State,  a  representative 
assembly,  the  responsibility  of  the  min¬ 
istry  to  that  assembly,  and  the  respon¬ 
sibility  of  both  to  the  people  through 
some  form  of  popular  suffrage.  All 
these  ideas  we  believe  in,  but  we  have 
no  wish  to  impose  them  upon  another 
people.  We  believe  that  the  people  of 
Russia  have  the  right  to  have  their  per- 


% 


3 


sons  and  property  protected  by  their 
government;  that  this  is  a  fundamental 
right;  and  that  it  is  palpably,  flagrantly,  * 
and  continuously  violated  by  the  Russian 
Government. 

The  indictment  which  our  fathers  pre-  j, 
sented  against  George  the  Third  is  in¬ 
significant  in  comparison  with  the  indict¬ 
ment  which  the  history  of  our  times 
presents  against  the  Czar  of  Russia.  He 
has  caused  or  permitted  thousands  of  his 
Jewish  subjects  to  be  massacred  in  cold 
blood,  and  other  thousands  to  be  pillaged 
and  driven  poverty-stricken  into  exile. 

In  a  single  year  he  has  caused  over  thirty 
thousand  persons  to  be  fined,  imprisoned, 
or  exiled  without  semblance  of  trial.  He 
has  habitually  allowed  both  men  and 
women  to  be  tortured  within  fortresses, 
and  this  when  no  definite  accusation  by 
any  responsible  accuser  had  been  brought 
against  them.  He  has  allowed  scores  of 
villages  to  be  pillaged,  hundreds  of 
homes  to  be  burned,  and  unnumbered 
girls  and  young  women  to  be  given  over 
to  shameful  violation.  He  has  allowed 
massacres,  planned  or  carried  into  effect 
by  government  authorities,  civil  and  mili¬ 
tary,  for  the  purpose  of  terrorizing  the 
population.  He  has  contemptuously  dis¬ 
regarded  the  Constitution  of  Finland, 
openly  and  flagrantly  broken  his  solemn 
pledges  to  the  Finnish  people,  and  made 
of  what  was  once  the  most  loyal  and 


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happy  part  of  his  Empire  a  disloyal  and 
wretched  province.  He  has  plunged  his 
country  into  an  unjustifiable  war  of  ag¬ 
gression,  for  which  it  was  wholly  unpre¬ 
pared  ;  and  has  driven  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet  thousands  of  Russian  peasants 
to  fight  in  a  distant  land  for  no  other 
purpose  than  to  gratify  the  greed  or  the 
ambition  of  court  favorites.  This  war 
has  been  conducted  without  competence 
and  without  mercy — the  Red  Cross  not 
respected,  non-combatants  frequently 
killed,  the  wounded  often  put  to  death, 
hospitals  deliberately  fired  upon.  He 
has  allowed  both  in  the  civil  and  military 
administration  a  corruption  unparalled  in 
modern  times;  soldiers  furnished  with 
shoddy  clothing  and  insufficient  and  un¬ 
fit  food,  a  navy  sent  to  sea  so  ill-prepared 
as  to  fall  an  easy  victim  to  the  first  ef¬ 
fective  assault  upon  it,  and  even  bread 
sent  into  famine  districts  made  of  rotten 
flour  and  infamously  adulterated  with 
earth.  When  his  people  have  marched 
to  the  palace  appealing  for  relief,  he  has 
permitted  them  to  be  shot  or  sabered  in 
the  public  square.  When  public  clamor 
grew  too  loud  to  be  disregarded,  he  has 
promised  freedom  of  the  press,  freedom 
of  assembly,  and  freedom  of  worship, 
only  to  disregard  each  promise  whenever 
the  exercise  of  such  freedom  appeared 
inconvenient  to  any  subordinate  official 
of  the  bureaucracy.  He  has  called  upon 


provincial  governors  to  report  on  the 
conditions  of  their  provinces,  promising 
them  that  their  reports  should  receive  *■ 
careful  consideration,  and  then  has  pun¬ 
ished  by  dismissal  from  office  or  with 
exile  governors  whose  reports  were  dis¬ 
tasteful  to  him.  He  has  convened  an 
assembly  of  the  people,  promising  them 
freedom  of  deliberation,  and  then  has 
dissolved  the  assembly  as  soon  as  the  de¬ 
bates  became  perilous  to  his  autocratic 
power.  He  has  proved  himself  equally 
unable  to  protect  from  the  assassin  the 
lives  of  his  ministers  and  the  lives  of  his 
peasant  population.  His  policy  has  been 
as  vacillating  as  that  of  Louis  XVI.,  his 
promises  as  futile  as  those  of  Charles  the 
First,  his  despotic  exercise  of  authority 
immeasurably  more  intolerable  than  that 
of  George  the  Third.  The  civilized  world 
justly  holds  the  Czar  responsible  for 
these  high  crimes,  for  they  are  perpe¬ 
trated  in  his  name  and  under  his  author¬ 
ity.  If  the  Russian  Government  author¬ 
izes  them,  it  is  intolerably  despotic;  if  it 
is  unable  to  prevent  them,  it  is  intoler¬ 
ably  incompetent.  In  either  case  it  is 
intolerable;  and  it  is  the  right,  it  is  the 
duty,  of  the  Russian  people  to  throw  off 
such  government  and  provide  new 
guards  for  their  future  security.  A  po¬ 
litical  organization  under  which  such  > 

crimes  are  perpetrated  is  not  worthy  to 


6 


be  called  a  government;  it  is  organized 
anarchy. 

Is  it  said  that  the  Slav  is  unfitted  for 
freedom?  I  reply  that  no  people  are 
(  fitted  for  despotism  except  they  who 
I  supinely  submit  to  it.  Whether  Russia 
is  ripe  for  a  republic  is  not  the  question ; 
the  question  before  us  is  whether  the 
Russian  is  to  hold  his  life  and  his  prop¬ 
erty  as  a  tenant  at  will  of  an  unscrupu¬ 
lous  bureaucracy.  So  far  as  I  can  judge, 
if  I  were  living  in  Russia  to-day,  I  should 
be  a  Constitutional  Democrat.  Anglo- 
Saxon  temperament  and  tradition  com¬ 
bine  to  incline  us  to  take  one  step  at  a 
time;  that  one  step  for  Russia  would  be 
the  organization  of  an  assembly  contain¬ 
ing  in  some  form  representatives  of  all 
classes  and  able  to  speak  for  them  with 
untrammeled  liberty  of  speech.  Is  it  said 
that  conditions  in  Russia  are  no  concern 
of  ours  ?  Whatever  concerns  our  fellow- 
men  concerns  us.  Human  brotherhood 
is  not  confined  within  the  limits  of  church 
creeds,  political  boundaries,  or  race  lines. 
Are  precedents  desired  for  that  expres¬ 
sion  of  popular  sympathy  which  this 
meeting  is  convened  to  afford?  They 
are  abundant:  in  the  sympathy  of  France 
for  America  in  our  Revolutionary  War; 
in  the  sympathy  of  England,  moved  by 
\  the  eloquence  of  Gladstone,  for  the  Ital¬ 
ians  suffering  under  the  oppression  of 
King  Ferdinand  II.;  in  the  sympathy  of 


9 


7 


America  for  the  Greeks  in  1824,  and  for 
the  Hungarians  under  the  leadership  of 
Kossuth  in  1849;  and  *n  the  act  of  * 
Russia  herself  intervening  in  1877  h1  the 
name  of  humanity  to  rescue  the  inhabi-  ( 
tants  of  Bulgaria  from  the  unspeakable  * 
Turk. 

It  is  true  that  the  criminal  classes  have 
taken  advantage  of  the  general  disorder 
to  pillage  and  murder;  it  is  true  that  in¬ 
dividuals  aroused  to  a  frenzy  of  despair 
by  cruel  oppression  have  employed  as¬ 
sassination  in  private  revenge;  it  is  also 
true  that  some  of  the  methods  resorted 
to  by  the  secret  revolutionary  tribunals 
do  not  commend  themselves  to  the  Amer¬ 
ican  judgment  and  the  American  con¬ 
science.  But  we  do  not  judge  a 
revolution  by  the  sporadic  acts  of  vio¬ 
lence  which  sometimes  accompany  it,  nor 
even  by  the  methods  which  the  revolu¬ 
tionists  sometimes  employ;  we  judge  a 
revolution  by  the  causes  which  have  led 
to  it,  and  by  the  ends  which  it  has  in 
view.  If  revolution  is  ever  justified,  the 
revolution  in  Russia  is  justified  by  the 
causes  which  have  provoked  it;  and  the 
end  that  the  revolutionsts  have  in  view — 
the  substitution  of  a  representative  for 
an  autocratic  government — must  com¬ 
mend  itself  to  all  who  believe  in  justice 
and  liberty. 


* 


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Executive  Committee 

< 

James  Bronson  Reynolds,  Chairman 
(Publicist),  New  York 

Joseph  M.  Price,  Vice-Chairman 
(Manufacturer),  New  York 

Mrs.  Isabel  C.  Barrows  (Journalist), 

New  York 

Robert  Erskine  Ely  (Director  League  for 
Political  Education),  New  York 

Hamilton  Holt  (Editor  The  Independent), 
New  York 

Julian  W.  Mack  (Judge  Circuit  Court  of  Cook 
County,  Ill.),  Chicago 

John  Martin  (Publicist),  Grymes  Hill,  S.  I. 

Miss  Lillian  D.  Wald  (Henry  Street  Settle¬ 
ment),  New  York 

and  the  President ,  Treasurer  and  Secretary , 
ex-officio 


